S E A T T L E P A C I F I C U N I V E R S I T Y hosted
its fifth annual Greater Seattle Community Breakfast on Wednesday, April 4,
2001. Held at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown
Seattle, the event attracted nearly 900 business and community leaders. One
of the highlights was the address by keynote speaker William Bennett.

Secretary of education for President
Ronald Reagan, and "drug czar" for President George Bush, the outspoken
Bennett is perhaps best recognized as a frequent talk show guest and
best-selling author. Among his most popular books are The Book of
Virtues, The Children's Book of Virtues and
The Death of Outrage:
Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals. His most recent books
are The Educated Child and The Children's Book of Faith.

With an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Williams College, Bennett went on to
earn a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Texas, as well as a law
degree from
Harvard. He is a fellow at
the Heritage Foundation and
co-director of Empower America, an
organization that seeks to influence public policy through various means,
including the sponsoring of debates and forums. Bennett is also the founder
and chairman of K12, an Internet-based
education company.

Response writer Connie McDougall recently spoke with Bennett
on a range of subjects:

Q: You
have written about "virtues." Are
virtues the same as "values"?

A: I say
no. I prefer the term "virtues" to
"values." That's why I called it The Book of
Virtues. I sent my manuscript of this book off, and somebody said, "I
like your book of values," and I said, "It's not the book of values; that's
the Sears catalog, or the Wal-Mart catalog. This is the book of virtues,
which is about strength of character, aspects or elements of character that
are admirable."

Values can be good or bad. Virtues are
always good. We should aspire to virtues. I'm talking now partly about the
way the word is used. People say on the Jerry Springer Show, "Well, those
are my values." The other day I heard on TV an absolutely horrible person,
who was doing horrible things to other people, say, "Well, those are my
values. And I have a right to be me." That's why I like to avoid the word
"values."

"Our music
should be more soothing. Our public discourse should be more bracing." -
William Bennett

Q: You've
said — and I'm quoting from various interviews — that "virtue is
about strengthening the character of the young." In fact, the subject of
your address at the SPU breakfast was "the education of character."
Why is this important?

A: What I
heard from responsible adults in both my job as secretary of education and
my job as drug czar was pretty much the same
message: We need to attend to the character of the young. We need to attend
to the culture and to the messages that the culture is sending to the young.
To make sense of the world in which we live; to say what is important; to
talk about what deserves to be loved, what deserves to be defended, and what
deserves to be avoided or disdained — this is the responsibility of
every adult for the sake of the next generation.

It is most encouraging to find a university like Seattle Pacific
that is unembarrassed to say, "This is what we are about. We seek to engage
this issue and the culture, and to talk to our students about character."

Q: What
is this thing we call "character?"

A: Well,
this thing we call character is based on the Greek. It means "marks." It is
the marks of a man or woman. It is those attributes which we admire, which
are worth admiring: worthy marks of a person's soul.

Q: One
thing that seems to complicate the education of character is prosperity.
You've said that prosperity contributes to the lack of moral anchors in this
country. Do you still believe that's true?

A: I
think there are a lot of things responsible for the moral drift, but that's
certainly one of them. Lately I've been been asked to talk often about the
whole question of wealth and character, and the concerns people have when
the economy explodes. Things are going well, people are making a lot of
money — I think that's still the case, even with the downturn —
so what
effect does this have on our character as a people? There's an uneasiness
that with having so much perhaps we've forgotten some of the more important
things.

This is not a thought original to me. The New Testament is full of
warnings about riches and wealth. There are more warnings about riches and
wealth than anything else in the New Testament. That's something that I've
asked some very wealthy Christians about, and we've had some some very
interesting discussions.

It's certainly not a problem to be wealthy, but it's clearly a very
serious temptation. Or, as we'd say in the Catholic faith, an "occasion of
sin." I believe it was [Colonial preacher] Cotton Mather who said, "Virtue
begat prosperity, and the daughter killed the mother."

Q: Yet
Americans are falling all over themselves trying to get more money. It's an
irony, isn't it?

A: Yes. I
think the distinction is between
acquisitiveness and greed. Greed's a sin in my church. It's a capital sin,
one of the seven capital sins. Acquisitiveness is not a sin. That is, to try
to improve one's life and one's situation for your family, for charity, for
those around you, for your community — it's fine. And I think you can
make a very strong case that hard-working people who make a lot of money,
do, in fact, produce jobs; do produce an economy that gives more
opportunity. The growth of the black middle class in the '70s and '80s was
much more about the economy and capitalism than all the give-away government
programs there were. So there's something to strongly recommend democratic
capitalism. Michael Novak has written extensively on this.

At the same time, we are to be reminded — those of us who are
Christians — of what matters most, and money is not what matters most.

Q: SPU
uses the phrase "engaging the culture and changing the world" to describe
its vision and priorities. That's a lofty phrase, but we hope it has meaning
for people outside our campus.

A: It
means a lot to me.

Q: Yes,
it dovetails with much of what you write about. How would you interpret the
phrase "engaging the culture," and what does it mean in practical terms?

A:
Engaging the culture — I think I spend about half my time engaging the
culture. Everything from movies and television, to what's on the
radio, to what's being taught in schools. And I think one has to engage the
culture. We are to be salt and light, and that means in the culture.

Flannery O'Connor, one of my favorite writers, says you have to
push as hard as the age that pushes against you. And the current age is
pushing very hard. Look at the anguish in light of
the recent school shooting in California, in San Diego. Look at the modern
temperament's
response to it: "Well, it's kids being bullied. And, gee, he didn't feel
well and he was kinda down. And he was taking some drugs and, you know,
drinking some. What are we going to do?" There's a kind of throwing up of
our hands.

What do we think will happen in a culture like this where
kids have access to all sorts of dangerous things? Things that they can eat
and drink and smoke that can destroy them. Weaponry that's at their
disposal, in an age that isn't clear about the difference between right and
wrong.

Q: You
are big on personal responsibility, yet you're saying this young man, and
other people who have committed such acts, are influenced heavily by all
these externals. Can you have it both ways?

A: Well,
that's a good question. It's the old Kantian question about heteronomy and
autonomy: Can we be self-legislating and be
influenced by others? Look, my children are
responsible for what they do. But I take a
major responsibility for the influences that
surround my children. There's such a thing as temptation, and it's very
important to try to keep those hard ones to a minimum. ... We have free
will, but we are also human and we can be subjected to influences that can
destroy our
capacity to reason and to make decisions. So, yes, we are free, but we are
deeply influenced by what's around us as well.

Q: I saw
you on Larry King recently and the subject was the Clinton pardons. I wrote
down a list of things that you said about the Clintons because I was
surprised about how personal they seemed. Let me read you some of the
things you said. You said, "This is a corrupt man." "The Clintons are a
disgrace." "They are despicable people." "They are a terminally
unethical couple."

A: That's
not personal. That's all on the record. I mean, I barely know Mrs. Clinton.
I know President Clinton a little bit.

They're strong words, but they're not personal. They're words I
can support in any forum. By the way, I was quoting — on purpose,
because I knew I'd be asked this question — Bob Herbert of the New
York Times, who is a liberal columnist. He wrote that very day that
this is a terminally unethical and vulgar couple who have betrayed everyone
who's ever believed in them.

Q: But my
question is, does this kind of language add to the foment? How does it jibe
with virtues such as compassion, civility and grace?

A:
There's nothing uncivil about what I've said. And I have a great deal of
compassion for Bill Clinton's victims. I'm prepared to have compassion for
him when he does the right thing, when he comes forward and really has
repentance. But you can't have repentance if you haven't laid out what
you've done. Everybody's giving him what Bonhoffer calls "cheap grace." But
I'm not prepared to do that. ...

Foment doesn't bother me. I mean, there are some fights worth
being in, and this is one that's worth being in. And we now, finally, have a
chance to make the right judgment as a people about this man. It's very
important what judgment we make because children are listening.

Q: You
have said that you don't like being set up as some paragon of virtue just
because you have written about the subject. Don't comments like those you've
made about the Clintons set you up as somewhat of a target, fairly or not?

A: I'm a
huge target.

Q: You
don't seem afraid of it. Why doesn't it hurt your feelings?

A:
Probably three reasons. One, this is not my end journey. I'm going somewhere
else when this is all over. As we all are. And this life, this earth, is not
my ultimate destination. I hope to do it right, and I'll be in Heaven when
it's over. Certainly my family will be there. I hope to join them.

Second, I was a tackle in football; I'm used to getting hit in
the head 15 times a day. You know, if I don't, it doesn't seem right. And
third, it may be the Irish, you know? There's a great joke about the Irish.
Someone said, "This made me think of you, Bennett." Then he said to me: "A
guy walks down the street and says, 'Is this a private fight, or can anybody
get in on it?'" So there may be some dispositional aspects to it. ...

It's funny, you know. We have the most vulgar and horrible and
corrupt and absolutely decadent culture out there where people say anything
and do anything. And everybody just accepts it. But when you speak publicly
and clearly and unambiguously about politics or
political figures, people are shocked. Our music should be more soothing.
Our public discourse should be more bracing.

Editor's Note: Click
here to read the full transcript of this year's Greater Seattle
Community Breakfast. Additionally, a limited number of free videotapes of
the beakfast are available for the Response readers. To request
a video, printed transcript or e-mail transcript, e-mail response@spu.edu or call 206/281-2051